Chris Connor reviews the fifth episode of Apple TV+’s Sugar…
Sugar’s fifth episode continues his investigation into Olivia’s disappearance, finding involvement from unexpected places. Initially, Sugar confronts David Siegel following his arrest at the end of the previous episode, David is clearly fixated on fame and its hard to discern fact from fiction. The episode cleverly does this throughout with quick edits and jumps between several conversations a showcase for City of God and The Two Popes director Fernando Meirelles, who has directed multiple episodes of the series.
The shorter runtimes of the series have helped keep the show running at a pace and it feels like there is rarely a moment for it to catch its breath here. We are bombarded with information about the case and the suspects. With Jonathan Siegel, unwell and the member of the family most trusted by Sugar, the rest of the family clearly can’t get rid of him fast enough.
Alongside this Ruby again shines suspicion on herself, wanting to make sure Sugar doesn’t dive to deep into the case to find anything he might not like. Exactly what is her involvement in Olivia’s disappearance and is there a wider conspiracy at play? With the much-discussed twist to come, all will be revealed in the coming episodes, thus far drip-feeding us hints that show some sort of involvement from Ruby.
This is one of the most action-packed Sugar instalments showing us the PI in action as he defends Melanie Mackintosh from an assailant, this helps set Sugar apart from the Noir heroes he idealises and also shows he is at times hard to stop perhaps overstepping the mark on this particular occasion.
Sugar continues to slowly build to what may have happened to Olivia, ending on an unexpected cliffhanger. It continues to be a stylish tribute to Film Noir with its own twists and turns aplenty. The sharp direction and performances keep the audience guessing the suspects true involvement in the disappearance. Sugar himself is not quite the most reliable narrator so it will be intriguing to see how the twists unfold with plenty certainly not what it seems on the surface.
Chris Connor
